JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) — Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, Aramco, said on Sunday that a cyberattack against it in August that damaged some 30,000 computers was aimed at stopping oil and gas production in Saudi Arabia, the biggest exporter in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“The main target in this attack was to stop the flow of oil and gas to local and international markets and thank God they were not able to achieve their goals,” Abdullah al-Saadan, Aramco’s vice president for corporate planning, said on Al Ekhbariya television. It was Aramco’s first comments on the apparent aim of the attack. Visit The New York Times for full article

"Hackers from a group called Cutting Sword of Justice claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that their motives were political and that the virus gave them access to documents from Aramco’s computers, which they threatened to release. No documents have yet been published.

"Aramco and the Saudi Interior Ministry are investigating the attack. A ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, said the attackers were an organized group operating from countries on four continents."